Business Survival: the art of keeping the business afloat. Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and "Father of the Video Game," discusses business survival — Silicon Valley style. This is a segment from the full unscripted interview.

Nolan Bushnell 1995 Interview
Interview date: February 24, 1995
Interviewer: John McLaughlin, Historian and President of the Santa Clara Valley Historical Association

Interviewer's question:
"At Atari, in the beginning, was it make it or break it?"

Transcript:
"Absolutely. In fact, I have told people, they'll say, "Nolan, I've got some real problems here and we have to declare Chapter 11." And I'd say, "Oh, how many sheriffs do you have in your lobby?" And they say, "What do you mean?" "Well, after you don't pay your bills, people will sue you and after they sue you and they get a judgment, they can have the sheriff come in and attach assets. And he'll come in with a piece of paper and he'll sit in the lobby and any money that comes in the door, he gets it." And he says, "Well, no, I don't have any of those." And I said, "Well, Atari in the summer of 1974 had four in their lobby. So you haven't even started to have problems yet." And it's so easy for people to remember the success, but we lived through those times where cash flow was tough. Where it was, it became normal for everyone to rush out at lunch with their paycheck on Friday to be the first ones to the bank because if you weren't, if you didn't cash your paycheck first, you might have one bounce. Things like that. You know, we got through them somehow and so it's the people who struggle through who don't give up and survive that make it happen."

For requests to use this copyright-protected work in any manner, email the copyright owner, Santa Clara Valley Historical Association. The contact information can be found on our YouTube About page.